Stockholm court finds former Telia CEO not guilty of bribery in Uzbekistan probe

A Stockholm court on Friday found Lars Nyberg, former CEO of telecoms operator Telia Company, not guilty of bribery, the Finnish news agency Yle Uutiset reported.

Charges against Nyberg and the former deputy director Tero Kivisaari were filed with the Stockholm court in 2017 over a deal to buy a 3G telecoms network license in Uzbekistan. They were suspected of bribing Gulnara Karimova, daughter of Islam Karimov.

Nyberg has pleaded not guilty.

“It has not been proven that alleged bribes have been given to someone who belongs to the circle of persons who, according to applicable law, could be made liable for taking bribes,” the Stockholm district court said in a statement on Friday.

It should be recalled that the scandal broke out a few years ago, when it became known that Telia transferred about $800 million to the dummy company accounts from 2004 to 2012. The authorities of the Netherlands and the United States since 2014 began to investigate the entry of Telia into the Uzbek market, which occurred in 2007, and in 2016 they fined the company with 1.25 billion euros.